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Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
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1:21 am
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| Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004
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7:28 pm - please god
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LET KERRY WIN!!!
current music: Cuckoo's Nest-Nickel Creek
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8:46 am - next year's halloween
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Ideas for next year. someone please remind me when the opportunity arises.
an iPod.
a Studio Ghibli character.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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8:22 am - election mania
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so word on the street is that turnout is HIGH. like waaaay high. Polls in VA opened at 6 a.m. this morning, with colleagues reporting that lines at 6:30 engendered a 45-60 minute wait and lines that stretched out of the polling place and around city blocks. At least the weather is wonderful today and will reach a high of 70 degrees.
Good thing I voted absentee.
Going to John's returns party and then headed up to 15th street to see Sarah and co. It's going to be a long night!
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| Monday, November 1st, 2004
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2:07 pm - I love elizabeth edwards
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Mrs. Cheney and her surrogates are in effect doing exactly what Elizabeth Edwards had the guts to say they were doing: they are sending the message to Mr. Rove's four million that they are ashamed of Mary Cheney. They are disowning her under the guise of "defending" her. They are exploiting her for the sake of political expediency even as they level that charge at Democrats.
From last sunday's NY TIMES, "The O'Reilly Factor for Lesbians." Frank Rich (who recently spoke at Vanderbilt.
current music: Cuckoo's Nest-Nickel Creek
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9:38 am - sorry guys, one more
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OCTOBER 28 - NOVEMBER 3, 2004 -- QUEER TO BE QUEEN
Queer to Be Queen
A gay Vanderbilt student takes on homecoming as a political statement
By Claire Suddath
Call Vanderbilt students what you like—privileged, preppy, single-handedly keeping the Nashville tanning salon business alive—but they can't be labeled wholesale as conservative. A gay man has decided to run for homecoming queen and, so far, the university has reacted with little more than a raised eyebrow.
Lambda, Vanderbilt's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender organization, nominated a male homecoming queen and a female homecoming king. Both students went through the application and interview process, and senior Everett Moran made the top 10 homecoming queen finalists. Needless to say, he wears this honor with glee.
"I accepted the homecoming nomination because I think that the way homecoming court works now, it doesn't represent all students. It just presents Mr. Vanderbilt Senior and Mrs. Vanderbilt Senior as this perfect heterosexual couple. I wanted to change that."
Moran completed his application and wrote an essay just like all the other homecoming hopefuls, outlining why he wanted to be homecoming queen. "I said [being homecoming queen] is a chance for students to speak up and say that Vanderbilt is an inclusive place. It's time for us to represent our queer community."
Vanderbilt's homecoming court has a history of diversity-related scandal; three years ago, students protested the all-white, nearly-all-blond female finalists, and even this year, despite Everett Moran's nomination, there are murmurs about the lack of minority representation among the candidates; only three of the top 20 king and queen finalists are minorities.
When Moran went through the interview process for homecoming court, he was asked what he would most like to change about Vanderbilt if he had $1 million to spend on the school. "I said I would foster discussion between students. Vanderbilt has a lot of diversity, but students don't embrace it; they don't like to step outside of their groups and talk to each other. I would want to make them interact, bring everyone together." Everett may not have $1 million to spend, but he serves as Lambda's community outreach chair, trying to bring Vanderbilt students together with the rest of Nashville.
The administration has remained quiet about the whole thing, which can be viewed as either supportive or strategically dismissive. Last week, Everett got a call from Mona Hicks, assistant vice chancellor of student activities, who asked to meet with him. "She said that because of the voting procedure rules, they were having problems with me running," Moran says. Vanderbilt's rulebook doesn't specify the gender of king and queen nominees, thus Moran could "legally" run for either position, but according to Hicks, voting procedure requires students to vote for their top three female and top three male choices. Things would get confused if a male ran for the position of queen, she explained. Moran was incensed. "I told her, 'Whether or not this is an issue, I'm already a finalist. I've gone through the interview process, and the committee selected me as a finalist. It's not my problem.' " Hicks, who couldn't be reached for comment, then told him to go ahead with his candidacy and that the administration supported his decision.
Students found out about their male homecoming queen nominee on Monday and, so far, they seem unaffected. Many students applaud Moran's efforts, but others of them simply don't care about the homecoming court. Moran says he hasn't personally received any negative feedback from the students, "although," he says, "a couple of my friends have told me that they've heard people in their classes talking bad about it. But nothing has been said specifically to me."
The homecoming court polls opened Monday and continue until the end of today. If Moran makes the top five, he will appear in the homecoming parade and Commodore Quake (pep rally and concert) and will be escorted to the football game and presented to the university at halftime. "I asked my friend, Melissa, to be my escort, but she has to go out of town, so I think I'll ask another friend, Allan." Moran says he'll wear a dress to the football game like all the other homecoming queen nominees. "I don't have one picked out yet. I'm waiting to see if I make the top five before I go on a major shopping spree."
current music: Cat Power - Ice Water
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9:31 am - I miss the scene
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Media Manipulation. Just an observation, but Vanderbilt University sure is hosting a bunch of journalistic heavyweights lately: Time's Joe Klein, The New York Times' Frank Rich, USA Today's Ken Paulson and author Ron Suskind, for example. Lectures are the academic version of business lunching, and the cynics in us wonder if Vandy officials are trying to curry favor with the media big dogs. Not that we don't want to hear what Frank Rich has to say. Meanwhile, it must be keeping Chancellor Gee busy, what with all those thank-you notes to write.
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8:53 am - this is way too sad
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http://nashscene.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?story=This_Week:News:Cover_Story
OCTOBER 28 - NOVEMBER 3, 2004 -- COVER STORY
Closing Time
When the Idle Hour closes its doors, Nashville will lose another one-of-a-kind landmark
By Kay West
"The Idle Hour, where it's always too late to leave early."—Lizard, Idle Hour customer/songwriter, from Half Live at the Idle Hour [Vol. 1]
There are three clocks in the Idle Hour; two of them reportedly work, not that anyone ever checks. It's not so much that time stands still in this battered old tavern, full of ghosts, living and dead; it just doesn't matter. The Idle Hour opens at 10 a.m. and closes around 3 a.m., unless the bartender decides to call it a night before then. It's open seven days a week, all year round. If a bartender feels like working on Christmas Day, he'll keep the place open so people who don't have anyplace to go have someplace to go. Memorial Day is celebrated the weekend after so customers will be in town for the backyard cookout, and the Halloween party—a big deal at the Idle Hour—is usually held a couple days before, just because.
All four of the bartenders started out as customers before making the move from one side of the bar to the other. Randall worked there from 1988 until 1991, moved away, then came back a couple years ago, and everybody says it was like he had never been gone. Tommy started working there during the big snowstorm two years ago, when Jonathan got so sick he nearly died and no one else could make it in; when Jonathan got better, he came back to work. Chuck, a steady customer since he moved to Nashville from St. Louis in 1985, figured he could save some money if he balanced his drinking there with working there, which he started doing four years back. He met his girlfriend at the Idle Hour three years before that, when he gave her a ride one night after she lost her keys; they're having her baby shower there on Nov. 6, and the two will get married sooner or later, after the baby—due Nov. 27—is born.
Nicky, a FedEx driver by day, can't remember exactly how long he's been coming to the Idle Hour; he says it only took about a day or two to get to know most everybody who came in on a regular basis, 'cause most of the regulars don't go but a day or so without coming in. His son Noah—sitting beside him at the bar, matching his dad beer for beer—says some of his earliest memories are of coming into the Idle Hour with his father. "We'd come in after Vanderbilt games on Saturday. I was about 7 or 8, and we'd walk in the door and it would be just like Cheers, everybody calling Dad's name."
Nicky says he always had it in mind that when he retired from FedEx, he would simply give up his stool for a shift or two behind the Idle Hour bar.
Unfortunately, that ain't gonna happen. For more than 30 years, the Idle Hour has sat minding its own business, happy and secure on the southern border of Music Row, where the street—once rife with boarding houses run by women who rented cheap, clean rooms to struggling songwriters—is still called 16th Avenue. Its cozy isolation on a small grassy lot shaded by the thick, gnarly arms of big old trees, with four well-tended rose bushes that bloom anew every spring, has somehow offered immunity to the immeasurable changes that have completely altered the neighborhood in which it is nestled. As old bungalows made way for contemporary new buildings, and security-guarded lobbies took the place of welcoming front porches, the Idle Hour remained a steadfast reminder of country music's gritty roots and come-as-you-are policy. But one month ago, time walked in the door of this legendary, last-of-its-kind beer joint, and now the Idle Hour is counting down its final moments.
"All right, I'm ready to idle down."—Zak, customer/songwriter, source of the slogan, "Idle down at the Idle Hour"
Tenured Nashvillians have a peculiar way of giving directions to people, offering as landmarks places that no longer exist: "Well, you take 21st past where Ireland's was and keep on going till you get to where Maude's used to be, then you'll turn and it's at that next corner where First American bank was, the one where Joyce used to work." God bless you if you just got to town.
Dianne Herald has lived here all her life, so she knows her way around, even if most of the landmarks of her youth are long gone. She was born at St. Thomas Hospital—back when it used to have a maternity ward and when it used to be on Hayes Street, before it moved out to Harding Road, near where Jimmy Kelly's used to be. She grew up on Montrose Avenue, about two blocks from where Becker's Bakery stood for nearly 75 years. She remembers stopping in after school for a cookie, and that every birthday meant a cake from Becker's. She started school at long-closed Clemons Elementary and ended it at Overton, which still exists, but not in the same building.
In 1978, she met Bobby Herald—another Nashville native—at what was then simply the Idle Hour and C&G Diner, named for owners Gladys and Charles Kinnard, kin to the folks who had Kinnard's Corner, which used to be at the corner of Blair and 21st. Anyway, Bobby was a bartender and she was a customer, romance kindled and sparked, and before long, the two became so close no one hardly said one name without adding the other. Bobby and Dianne. Dianne and Bobby. The owners asked them if they wanted the place, and they said sure. Loyal Vanderbilt fans, they painted the squat, stucco building bright-yellow with black trim, and added "Bobby's" to the front of the Idle Hour name.
The short front door, which leads into the cave-like, smoke-filled interior, is also painted in Commodore colors, but these days the walls are almost totally obscured by bumper stickers, beer signs, NASCAR calendars from seasons long past, and dozens of yellowed black-and-white publicity photos of stars, former stars and not-quite-stars. Thanks to years of exhaled nicotine, the ceiling is more brown than gold, except for an odd horse-head shape that marks the spot where a salesman once demonstrated a miraculous cleaning product to Dianne. In spite of its obvious efficiency, Dianne didn't buy it. "Do you see anything in here worth cleaning?" she asks with a smile. Even the aloe plant, the sole green thing in the place, sitting incongruously in one of the few tiny windows, has a layer of dust, though it has inexplicably managed to stay alive.
Once they bought the place, Bobby and Dianne shut down the diner, and a pool table went in what used to be the back dining room. They took out the bed that was in the rear area where regulars could sleep off a drunk, not an uncommon occurrence at the Idle Hour.
Though they officially stopped serving food years ago, Dianne cooked up pots of stew at home on Friday nights and would set up a few Crockpots on the pool table for anyone to help themselves. "We never charged anything for it, not a penny. We had a lot of cookouts over the years, on the back patio there. If we had steak, we would charge for that, $3 for the steak, corn and salad. We take care of our bartenders and our customers. We are all family. We've kept 'em up and run 'em off, but even the ones we run off came back sooner or later. We get all kinds in here. I swear, Bobby and I think there must be a sign at the Greyhound Bus Station that says, 'Idle Hour That Way.' "
Fourteen years ago, Bobby and Dianne decided to get married. The natural place to hold the wedding was the Idle Hour. After all, the family was already there. They let everybody know a few days in advance and lined up Bill Covington, county clerk, to perform the ceremony. A few women volunteered to be bridesmaids, and a few men offered to stand up for the groom. The morning of the wedding, Sept. 28, 1990, Dianne went and bought the two rings. When it came time for the ceremony, there were so many people crammed into the bar that they had no choice but to move it outside.
"That video is about the funniest thing you've ever seen," says Dianne. "The person filming it was standing outside, and all you can see is people pouring out the door, and every one of them had a beer in their hand. We were out on the front yard, and Bill asked Bobby if he was ready to get married. Bobby is saying yes and shaking his head no. About that time, the police came. They said we couldn't be outside with open containers. It was pretty silly, because we were spread out over two yards, and there were judges and lawyers and politicians everywhere. Bobby has three brothers—one worked for the water department, one for the fire department, and one was a major on the police force. Anyway, we finished up and went back inside. Everybody had taken up a collection to pay Bill for the ceremony, but he wouldn't take it, so we put it on the bar and bought beer for the house all night. Some of the girls had brought food, and one of our friends got a wedding cake from Becker's. It was all real nice."
"It was the most unique experience of my life," Nicky adds, taking a drink from his beer. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything."
"I'll have whatever the guy on the floor was drinkin'."—John M., from Barely Live at the Idle Hour [Vol. 2]
There is still a menu board next to the door that leads to the back room. It offers—though you can't necessarily get—pizza, popcorn, beef sticks, crackers, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and, for health nuts, V-8. Customers who want something to chew on can buy a pack of gum; Rolaids and Alka-Seltzer are also on the menu, promising speedy recovery from a few too many cold Buds the night—or the day—before.
"Remember that time that somebody bet J.W. [Lokey, a bartender there] that he couldn't drink a case of beer in one day?" Dianne directs the question to Tommy behind the bar, who momentarily takes his eye off the UT/Alabama game and gruffly replies, "He drank the whole thing in one afternoon, went out and got something to eat, and came back that night to drink some more."
"J.W. passed about six years ago. Sure do miss him," Dianne says wistfully.
Everyone at the bar raises a beer. "Here's to J.W."
"J.W.!"
Some years ago, people took to stapling dollar bills—or fives, 10s and sometimes a 20—on the ceiling, writing their name and the date on it. A cow bell is rung to announce the generosity of a patron who buys a round for the bar. When the phone rings, the bartender asks the room, "Who's not here?" before he answers. If a customer needs to make a call, it's 35 cents to the bartender, who dials out from the one house phone. Then the customer picks up the extension phone—which has no dial or push-buttons—on the wall. "You just can't find those anymore," Nicky observes.
The bathrooms, two sober or three drunken steps from the bar, are an endless source of amusement for regulars as they watch first-timers open the door and walk smack into another door. "We call that the quarter-inch bathroom hall," Dianne notes with a laugh. It's required by the privacy law, which states that if a bathroom is visible from the main room, there be another wall protecting the commode user from prying eyes. Not that very much ever stirs folks at the bar from the business at hand, which primarily consists of drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, telling stories and glancing up at the back or front door to see who's coming in or going out.
"The words on these songs are great, but the lyrics need some work."—Bobby Herald, from Half Live at the Idle Hour
Aside from their affection for cold beer, cigarettes, an old story and one another, what the owners, employees and customers most appreciate is an original song, preferably written by one of them. And there are plenty to choose from.
In a closet are four guitars, a mandolin, a tambourine and a kazoo, Bobby Herald's instrument of choice. An upright piano sits tucked between the front wall and one end of the bar. It doesn't take much encouragement to get someone to start playing on something, whether it's 10 o'clock on a Tuesday morning or 10 o'clock on a Saturday night.
"We never had to hire a band," says Dianne. "We have so much talent here, we never needed one. Some of the greatest writers in Nashville have written in here or sung in here; some of them people know, and most of 'em they don't. But I love every one of them."
There are two CD compilations of songs written and performed by Idle Hour regulars; the first, no longer available, is Half Live at the Idle Hour, which was certified Plywood soon after its release, or so the plaque that hangs behind the bar says. The second is Barely Live at the Idle Hour. Both were recorded in customer Jack Bond's living room, where he served as producer and musician. The cover of each is a reproduction of an oil painting of the building by artist/customer/songwriter Ann Tiley. Credits on both CDs thank Bobby for not playing his kazoo, and Dianne for keeping Bobby out of the "studio" while they were recording.
"The best damned bar I ever crawled out of."—Kenny, from Half Live at the Idle Hour
Since they took over the Idle Hour, Bobby and Dianne never had a lease; it was just, she says, a day-to-day thing, and one day ran into another until more than 25 years went by. About a month ago, Dianne answered their phone at home, and it was the landlord. "I knew something was wrong when he said, 'Dianne, let me talk to Bobby.' I handed Bobby the phone and he listened for a minute, then he said, 'How long do we have?' When he got off the phone, he told me the landlords had sold the property, and we had 45 days to get out. I think I was in shock. I cried for two days. What hurt me the most I think was that they didn't even offer us the chance to buy the property. I know that we could have come up with the money; our customers would have given us whatever it took to keep it." The call from the landlord came on Sept. 28, 2004, Dianne and Bobby's 14th wedding anniversary.
On the third-to-last Saturday night of the Idle Hour's rapidly dwindling time left, nothing seems any different than any of the hundreds of Saturday nights that have come before; the names may change, but the character of the place remains the same. Tommy is behind the bar, Nicky sits on a stool with Dianne on his right, his son Noah on his left. Chuck's girlfriend is at one end of the bar, Randall is at the other. The UT game plays out on the TV before giving way to the first game of the 2004 World Series. Chuck comes in and takes over for Tommy. "The Red Sox can't win; it would mean the end of the world," he opines, taking a drink from a thermal cup inscribed "Asshole." "I got that from a customer; I never saw her since."
Behind him, taped to the bar, are a few handwritten signs. One says, "Get Your Second Idle Hour CD NOW Before We Go Out of Business, Just $10!" Another says, "Thank you Nashville for all the wonderful years and memories." And the third: "Closing Party, November 12th, Friday, All Day." The actual closing is Nov. 15, but the party was set to give Dianne and Bobby three days to clean up and pack things up.
That is, if there's anything left. Dianne has set up two large binders. One is for customers' names, numbers and e-mail addresses so they can all keep in touch, and for use as a contact list in case the couple open another bar. The other is in place of a closing auction, which Dianne just doesn't think she could bear. On the outside, she has written: "If there is anything in this building you would like to have, please put your name and what you would give for it. Be sure to tell us in detail what it is, your name and telephone number. If it is an item we are selling, we will get back to you real soon. Thanks."
The pages inside, which are filling rapidly, make great reading, and the book is passed up and down the bar, provoking laughs and more reminiscing.
"I want my dollar bill back. I'll give you a dollar."
"Please give Mike Phyllis the No Whining Sign."
"I need John Hackett's phone #, $200."
"Ain't gonna give you shit. I brought it in, I'll take it out."
After Bobby and Dianne walk out of the Idle Hour for the last time, the new owners of the property are expected to bulldoze the building, with plans to build town homes on the lot. By next year, the only concrete evidence that the Idle Hour existed will be what customers bring home with them: photos snapped, then forgotten in the back of a drawer somewhere; the promotional pens that say "Idle Down at the Idle Hour"; two CDs of songs that never have and probably never will make the big-time; a painting finished before the life-sized plastic man in overalls had taken residence out front, when the outside walls were still bright-yellow, Chuck's old car was parked out on 16th Avenue and Dianne's roses were in full bloom.
"We're just an old neighborhood bar—there's not many places like this left," Dianne says on this rainy Saturday night, getting ready to go home and make one last pot of stew. "Some people call it a dive, but it's ours and we love it. There's been a lot of life lived here. You know, when Bobby gives me flowers, he has always given me three: one for the past, one for the present and one for the future. We've had a good past and present; I don't know what we're gonna do in the future."
The Idle Hour is destined to become another vanished landmark that we use in our peculiar Nashville way of giving directions. But more than that, it is a personal touchstone for our own place in the past and the present of this rapidly evolving city, like a birthday cake from Becker's, an ice cream soda at Candyland, a hot chicken sandwich at Columbo's, a bowl of chili at Varallo's, or a pound of organic wild rice from Sunshine Grocery. So quick, before it's gone for good, do yourself a favor and go get a beer at Bobby's Idle Hour, even if it's just to say you were there. The door is always open, until it closes forever on Nov. 15, when time will finally run out at the Idle Hour.
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| Sunday, October 31st, 2004
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12:29 pm - Friedman is da best.
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October 31, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Apparent Heir
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Columnists for this newspaper are not allowed to endorse presidential candidates. But I think this election is so important, I am going to break the rules. I hope I don't get fired. But here goes: I am endorsing George Bush for president. No, no - not George W. Bush. I am endorsing his father - George Herbert Walker Bush.
The more I look back on the elder Bush - Bush 41 - the more I find things to admire and the more I see attributes we need in our next president.
Let's start with domestic policy. The elder George Bush was the real uniter, not divider, the real believer in a kinder, gentler political dialogue. Yes, he had a Democratic Congress to deal with, so he had to be more conciliatory, but it came naturally to him. In 1990, the elder Bush sided with Congressional Democrats to raise taxes, because he knew it was the right thing for the economy, despite his famous "Read my lips" pledge not to raise new taxes. While that 1990 tax increase contributed to his re-election defeat, it laid the foundation for the Clinton tax increases, which, together with Mr. Bush's, helped to hold down interest rates and spur our tremendous growth in the 1990's and the buildup of a huge surplus.
On foreign policy, the elder Bush maintained a healthy balance between realism and idealism, unilateralism and multilateralism, American strength and American diplomacy. He believed that international institutions like the U.N. could be force multipliers of U.S. power. Rather than rubbing Mikhail Gorbachev's nose in the dirt, the elder Bush treated him with respect, and in doing so helped to orchestrate the collapse of the Soviet Union, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany without the firing of a single shot. The nonviolent unraveling of the Soviet Empire ushered in a decade of prosperity and an era of unprecedented American power and popularity.
The alliance that Mr. Bush, Brent Scowcroft and James A. Baker III built to drive Saddam out of Kuwait had so many allies it virtually turned a profit for America. Mr. Bush chose not to invade Baghdad in 1991. Right or wrong, he felt that had he tried, he would have lost the coalition he had built up to evict Saddam from Kuwait. He obviously believed that the U.S. should never invade an Arab capital without a coalition that contained countries whose support mattered in that part of the world, such as France, Egypt, Syria or Saudi Arabia.
The elder Bush rightly understood that it was not in Israel's interest, or that of the U.S., for Israel to be expanding settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The Madrid peace conference convened by the elder Bush paved the way for both the Oslo peace process and the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty, which ended Israel's diplomatic isolation with countries like India and China. It was also the elder Bush who laid the groundwork for the Nafta free-trade accord, completed by President Bill Clinton.
In short, the elder Bush understood the importance of acting in the world - but acting wisely, with competence and preparation. His great weakness was his public diplomacy. He wrongly antagonized American Jews by challenging their right to lobby on behalf of Israel. He could have given more voice to the amazing liberation of humanity that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented and to the American anger over the Tiananmen Square massacre. Although, in his muted response to Tiananmen, the elder Bush kept China-U.S. relations from going totally off the rails, which kept China on a track to economic reform. Although he raised taxes, he never really explained himself. So his instincts were good, his mechanics were often flawless, but his words and music left you frustrated. Still, the legacy is a substantial one. Over time, historians will treat the elder Bush with respect.
So as we approach this critical election of 2004, my advice, dear readers, is this: Vote for the candidate who embodies the ethos of George H. W. Bush - the old guy. Vote for the man who you think would have the same gut feel for nurturing allies and restoring bipartisanship to foreign policy as him. Vote for the man you think understands the importance of facing up to our fiscal responsibilities for the sake of our children. And vote for the man who has the best instincts for balancing realism and idealism and the man who understands the necessity of using energetic U.S. diplomacy to make Israel more secure - by helping to bring it peace with its Arab neighbors, not just more tours from American Christian fundamentalists.
Yes, next Tuesday, vote for the real political heir to George H. W. Bush. I'm sure you know who that is.
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| Sunday, October 24th, 2004
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3:04 pm - this makes me sick
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from the Nation (thailand)
Starbucks Coffee: 50th store in 6 yrs
Starbucks Coffee Co marked the celebration of its sixth anniversary in Thailand with the opening of its 50th store here – in Hua Hin, one of Thailand’s most popular tourist resorts.
Starbucks has more than 1,200 stores in 13 markets in the Asia-Pacific region and serves over five million customers in Asia every week.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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2:24 pm - so here's today's lesson
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I threw up on three different occasions today while at work. So, as stupid of a lesson as it is to learn, I have concluded that there will be no more gordon's vodka for me. EVER.
does anyone have any mouthwash?
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| Wednesday, October 20th, 2004
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3:05 pm - Pictures of the weekend
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2:59 pm - hi again
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I'm sorry that I haven't written. I've been meaning to since last week, but with my guest in town and the workload, I just felt overwhelmed.
But my guest caught her plane this morning at 5:30 and my weekend started a day earlier. So ...
It was a good weekend. It started on Saturday when I went to a friend's work-related party. I made dinner with Liana (from Vanderbilt, she was a violin student, a very good one). We had something from my thai cookbook, a noodle dish, that didn't turn out quite as we expected. But the wine was good, a 2002 shiraz from Western Australia, and that's all that mattered to us.
At the party we each had a Jack and 7-up (not my usual combination — but it worked) and it amazes me how much we found that we needed to catch up on. I mean, the dinner conversation was great, and we talk occasionally by phone, but I couldn't find a moment when there was nothing to talk about. I guess I feel nostalgic for the friends I made in Tennessee and the folks that I forged a life with. We shared so much down there in the hills.... I hope it stays like that for a long time.
After the party we walked down the street to a Salvadoran place called Hadees (I'll send photos later) ... quite a photo sequence aimed squarely at making fun of ME! We ordered a round of "Fiesta" margaritas (not sure what qualifies the fiesta part) and boy was I caked after that one. Then ended the night at our friend's Luis's house. I think I passed out, cause I remember waking up and it was just after the last bus left. so we walked home and I crashed in bed.
The next morning was so confusing ... cause it was a clearly beautiful day and I had to work at 11:30a. But I was not feeling in the least bit clear and beautiful. I had to step out of the office for some air once (I probably should have done it twice).
Needless to say, Sunday was spent in.
Monday Johnny made a wonderful lentil soup.
Tuesday was a blah, rainy day. But it was kinda beautiful during some parts of the shower. At least I didn't have to watch it from under the portico at the Four Seasons. I'M SO GLAD TO BE DONE WITH THAT JOB!
I saw I heart huckabees.
and I saw The Piano Teacher ... holy cow, the book's author won the nobel prize in literature ... what in the world were they thinking???
OK, your turn. I'm running to costco. Reply here please.
current music: Cat Power - Top Expert
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| Tuesday, October 19th, 2004
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8:26 am - exciting revelations!
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12:56 am - my new project
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I've had two suggestions for projects recently.
the first: Houston's butt, up close.
the second: DC, up close (photographs of objects from six inches away or less).
I like the latter, although it would require the purchase of a new macro lens. Plus, I've been told that it's been done here (but I haven't seen the results).
So here's a third thought: I'm going to take an issue and design a New Yorker cover around that issue. Here's an example:
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| Friday, October 15th, 2004
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4:20 pm - thank god someone thinks in the south
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GUEST COLUMN
Religious fervor envelops politics
By JOHN J. THATAMANIL
Published on: 10/15/04
In the South, it is easier to ask complete strangers, "Where do you worship?" than "Who will you vote for?"
Two years ago, when a new colleague of mine from Germany drove up to the gates of a liberal arts college in the Deep South, the security guard asked him, "Have you met the Lord Jesus Christ?" Within minutes of his arrival in Dixie, he was confronted by a question about his eternal fate.
The other day, as I picked up my daughter from school in my Buick sporting a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker, a teacher leaned in close and whispered, "I like your politics, but don't tell anybody."
What's going on? Why are ultimate religious matters easier to discuss than penultimate political ones?
The question about worship probably is easier to pose because Southerners take for granted that our neighbors are churchgoing folks. That's still not a bad bet, despite the growing presence of immigrant populations from around the world. Also, unless your neighbors happen to be radical Episcopalians, knowing that they attend church is all you need to know that they're "all right," that they conform to conventional social norms.
But it may also be easier to ask about churchgoing precisely because it no longer is an ultimate matter. These days, more is at stake in our choice of political candidates than in our choice of churches. Asking where somebody worships is largely akin to asking whether they belong to the Elks or the Lions Club. Nothing weighty hinges on the response.
But when it comes to questions about the war in Iraq, tax policy, Social Security, health care, constitutional amendments against gay marriage, capital punishment and abortion, our differences matter profoundly. So deep are our convictions that it would be no mere rhetorical flourish to say that they matter to us religiously.
Under such circumstances, political differences acquire creedal status. Conversion, not persuasion, becomes the standing goal. Putting out yard signs is an act of evangelical confession, and political conversation testimony.
And when conversions do take place, there is much rejoicing. Witness the welcome accorded at the Republican convention to Sen. Zell Miller, the prodigal son and Clinton supporter, who finally saw the light.
Miller's speech also reveals the great danger of a politics become creedal. We not only confess and seek to convert. We crusade. The vitriol, which in a bygone era was reserved for debates over deep-seated theological differences, now manifests itself routinely in what passes for political discourse. Civic conversation is now decidedly uncivil.
Is there a remedy for such incivility? One Southern solution is tried but untrue: Whenever possible, paper over differences and avoid conflict. Adopt a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Polite gentlemen know better than to ask each other about party affiliation.
A more substantial candidate solution can come from the churches. American churches must refuse either to be innocuous civic associations or political parties at prayer.
They can remind crusaders of every stripe, conservatives and progressives, that they risk idolatry when they identify their positions with God's own. Where we worship should say more about how we participate in political conversation than it does about how we are likely to vote.
This modest intervention won't solve all our problems, but it should make it somewhat easier to engage in robust political conversation without fear of violence and without apology. The alternative is a deeply impoverished civic life that bodes ill for our shared democratic aspirations.
John J. Thatamanil worships at an Episcopal church and is an assistant professor of theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville.
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| Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
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2:37 pm - super duper questions
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Mandate Madness - today's NYTIMES
By ALAN EHRENHALT, the executive editor of Governing magazine
As a candidate in 2000, you argued in favor of compassionate conservatism and a restoration of decency and moderation to the national government. Those of us who voted for you took this seriously. But your personal demeanor as president has been belligerent and dismissive of virtually anyone who opposes your policies. You state flatly that anyone who is not with you is against you, and at least imply that disagreement is equivalent to disloyalty. You refuse to admit making mistakes, even when it is obvious that you made them. You all but invite attacks on the country with "bring it on" taunting that makes you sound more like a gang leader than a responsible head of state. What happened to your promise of compassion? Have you concluded that moderation and decency are not useful qualities in a president?
When you were governor of Texas, you complained about the long list of mandates that Washington was imposing on the states without supplying the money to pay for them. You criticized the Republican Congress for ignoring legitimate state complaints. "Mandates are mandates, regardless of the philosophical bent of the person doing the mandating," you said in May 1998. "It starts at the White House." But your administration has imposed billions of dollars in mandates without even a pretense of offering sufficient money for states to meet them. Did your concern for fairness to Texas and the 49 other state governments simply evaporate when you moved into the White House?
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2:21 pm - today's contest
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courtesy of nana. I entered a washpost contest to win a customized ALFIE themed Vespa. Just in time for winter (says morgan).
I WANNA VESPA!
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9:30 am - Free at last
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October 13, 2004 - NY Times
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
Long Hair and the Legislature in Hong Kong
By ELEANOR RANDOLPH
HONG KONG — For all the focus on high-powered commerce in this region, Hong Kong also has a more important task, as a fragile laboratory for democracy in Asia.
At the center of this experiment in representative government is Hong Kong's Legislative Council, called LegCo, an adaptation of a British council that has only a modest amount of power. LegCo meets in a chamber that is small and spare - no gold domes or lavish marble panels to make a pretense at grandeur.
Its routines are not yet cemented into the rulebooks, at least not since 1997, when the British handed Hong Kong back to China. And the council's every step or misstep takes place in a kind of petri dish being examined by the powers in Beijing.
So the election last month of Leung Kwok-hung, called Long Hair, as one of Hong Kong's 60 legislators has added the kind of noise that nobody in this region can quite register.
Imagine the scene if Michael Moore was suddenly elected to the United States Congress. That's close to what LegCo's opening session looked like last week.
Mr. Leung won his seat by a large margin - at age 48, he is something of political pop star. He has been a prominent figure in demonstrations since the 1970's, and his signature long hair - he is known as Long Hair in both Chinese and English - gets cut when he's in jail.
Last week, Mr. Leung's ponytail hung down to his shoulder blades.
For the swearing-in ceremony, his fellow members arrived in their best business attire. Long Hair wore a T-shirt with Tiananmen Square on the front and Che Guevara on the back. When he was called to come forward and take the oath, he raised his left fist, encircled with a black wristband to remember those who died in 1989.
Mr. Leung had planned to redo the oath of office, but a Hong Kong judge said such a step would make it impossible for him to serve. Instead, the new legislator added his own messages to the standard oath.
He demanded vindication for those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. He called for the release of political prisoners and an end to one-party rule on the mainland.
"Long live democracy!" he shouted. "Long live the people!" Then he was sworn in as a council member.
As with almost everything that goes on now in Hong Kong, the real concern is how the mainland sees Mr. Leung's protests. His statements touch on raw truths, the combustible stuff that most people are afraid to say too loudly, especially in an official chamber.
This community remembers the uncertainty brought by street protests last year after the government tried to clamp down on security, and it now wonders what the central government will do to Mr. Leung, to the council and maybe even to Hong Kong.
The possibilities are draconian, but last week at LegCo, the presiding chairwoman seemed more concerned that Mr. Leung was improperly dressed. Clearly, there is much to play out here.
As one legislator suggested after the session, LegCo has to get used to Mr. Leung, and he has to get used to LegCo.
For all the press attention to Mr. Leung, he was not a real player in a real legislative revolution that took place far more quietly on opening day. A pro-Beijing committee lawmaker, who was criticized for having "disgraced" Hong Kong by "showing his middle finger" to demonstrators last year, was defeated as a committee chairman.
In his place, the council elected Emily Lau, a pro-democracy legislator and long a thorn in Beijing's side. Even Ms. Lau looked surprised. She stood and gave a different hand signal - V for victory - to the cameras.
As a veteran observer of legislative bodies, including the most dismal ones in New York State, I found Hong Kong's miniature legislature struggling admirably to create a real democracy. It seems ready to tolerate loud voices and probably T-shirts as well.
But the essence of that democracy may well be that, unlike in Albany or even sometimes in Washington, the outcome of a vote can still be a surprise.
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12:24 am - new bar
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went to a new bar today. Wonderland, in columbia heights. ran into david hernandez from vandy. he works for some solid waste authority association. he likes his job, plus he bartends on the side. I guess not a bad way to spend a living. It was kinda villageresqe without the pictures. they have the dccd sign on the wall and there's an upstairs too. nana is supposed to spin there at some time in the future, I think. A good spot for liana's visit this weekend. yay!
Saw some south asian shorts at the avalon with johnny, nana and her friends brian and one other dude. it was day five of the dc apa film fest. had a hotdog with kraut at the american city diner and tasted nana's wet fries (brown gravy slathered). Kinda yummy, but not as yummy as the burger with gravy down in lynchburg va.
today was a long day at work. I was busy most of the day. sent a nasty letter to lily to get my paycheck fixed and will send my expense report tomorrow as well.
tomorrow night: apa film fest or debate party. apa topic: lost fathers and chinese restaurants as informal embassies. so what should I watch? the debate is at bills. last time they watched there, kerry won. and they had chinese take out. the last debate we watched here and had thai. those boys are too weird.
up at 6:30 again.
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